Bringing out the best and worst in people

Hello, silence, my old friend. It's been some time since I've dropped in on my own blog. I must say I'm glad to see that more accomplished bloggers than myself are feeling drained of inspiration at this time of year. I wonder whether that's despite or because it's been an eventful time in Oxford politics -- we have what can only loosely be called the delights of budget-setting.

Those of youwho are aficionados of council meetings will need no telling that setting the budget provides the biggest bun-fight of them all. It's long, it's febrile and, by God, it's depressing. This year's meeting was no exception in length -- it started at four, teatime, and finished at quarter to midnight, after the restaurants are closed (I am no more grumpy than when I am starved. And sober). And it had it's own form of drama, with adjournments being called, political groups rushing in and out of the chamber huddling into their cabals. But, at the same time, there were elements of this year's process which were, for once, actually positive.

The budget which was finally set was certainly a compromise -- each of the three political groups on the council got something, no-one got everything. What was impressive was that a large part of the budget was agreed by tripartite discussions in the days before the meeting and on the day itself. It was actually proof that we could all be mature and work constructively with each other.

But, as if the parties felt we shouldn't let anybody know that we can be constructive behind closed doors, the last part of the budget debate really did sink into the mudbath, with metaphorically brown-caked figures rising to lob insults in one direction or another at top volume. We can all do it -- perhaps none of us can resist the allure of the kindergarten -- but it struck me on this occasion more than ever that it does us little credit. Especially when the figures actually at stake were a minute part of the overall budget; when there was no audience to watch us preening ourselves, and when, in the end, there was probably little difference across the chamber on the principles supposedly at issue.

I would hope that, after ten days to reflect on this, all parties would feel that they had actually achieved something in the process and that the final budget set was better for not being the work of a single party. But, there again, the budget has proved only an interlude in the battle over recycling, on which my colleague, Stephen Tall, has written recently. Now, if you want depressing, that's the debate to follow. Come to think of it, it deserves a posting of its own here. Perhaps I have re-found the urge to blog.

There's only one Stephen Tall

It must a humbling experience, really, for my ward colleague, Stephen Tall. He is well-known to all you denizens of Bloggoshire (a village community if ever there was one). He has even acheived a certain fame, with his appearances on various television channels, as well as being a guest star on a internet chat show filmed up some back-alley in London. What must have chuffed him most, though, was appearing on the back page of LibDem News last autumn, with a photo showing how terribly pleased he was to be standing next to the MP and indomitable blogger, Lynne Featherstone. And now he's done it again! He's there on the back page of the latest issue of LibDem News -- except ...

It would be nice if they'd got his name right. The editor, perhaps imagining that a forename resonant of Christianity's protomartyr was not politically correct, has rechristened him 'John Tall.' But it's him, all right, including a link to his blog. Perhaps LibDem News noted his middle initial was J and surmised he was an honest John. But, no, this blog can exclusively reveal, Stephen's middle name is Joseph. Of course, he's no ordinary Joe, even if he's apparently not as memorable to print journalists as he is in the frebrile blogosphere.

And what was the link that the News highlighted? His end-of-year poll on LibDems with a certain primeval animal attraction, an irresistible sexual charisma. Not only do they get his name wrong, but they choose out of all his intelligent disquistions on the minutiae of liberal values, that post. As I say, humbling.

Brazen self-publicist in the LibDems shock

And it's not an MP I'm talking about. No, I see that my ward colleague, Stephen Tall, has entered into the festive spirit by sticking up his own poll on his blog. I'm not sure quite when he latched on to the idea of pulchritudinous LibDems -- while reading the Executive papers for Oxford City Council, perhaps? -- but it's an intriguing send-off to a year with more than its fair share of salacious headlines proving we are the party for partying. And I'm not yet clear what psephological insight he is attempting to gain from it, unless it is counting how many times his adoring readers complain he is too modest to list himself. But it sure enough ensures that he ends 2006 on a high of blog-hits: is he trying for some sort of po-mo Christmas no. 1?

Personally, I can't bring myself to vote. After all, it's not by STV. But you've got the link just in case you haven't seen it already (and how likely is that?).

An explanation, at last

The time has come to explain this blog's name. Some, I’m sure, have been waiting with bated breath. I should start by saying the my first idea was mores liberales. But that looks on screen like a case of Manuel’s Fawlty English. There are certainly mores liberales in heaven and earth than some would credit. But the Latin noun ‘mores’ is also an English noun which you’ll recognise – customs or habits. And so, with a slight change of case in order to avoid confusion (for that we would not want, would we?), we have: ‘about liberal habits.’

I see at the back of the class an objection from our Blairite friend in Liverpool. He’s waving his arm about, eager to make his point –‘but liberalis isn’t the same as liberal.’ Thank you for that intervention and it is a point well-made. It is here that the dread e-acute word makes a re-appearance.

For, the term liberalis comes from a time when there were free men and those not so free. A liber was a free man in contrast to a slave. ‘Liberalis’ and thus liberal is merely the adjective which derives from that. Even in the classical world, however, a ‘liberal custom’ was not just what a free man would do, but what he (excuse the gender imbalance for the moment) should do. It was implied that a free man should act in certain ways and, most particularly, be educated in certain skills. The concept is still with us or, at least, with our American cousins when they talk of the liberal arts (which we call the humanities, as in those skills which are needed to achieve the full potential of a human – a very Renaissance concept).

But, as everyone is now free, what is liberal is what is suitable for every individual. Quite so, but let’s not lose sight of how recent that insight is. And here’s the point: go back to John Stuart Mill, writing On Liberty in the 1850s, and you’re in an era where the majority still lacked the vote. He might have wanted to alter the gender imbalance by ensuring both sexes had the vote, and he might have been in favour of universal suffrage but he wrote in an age where only the few were ‘citizens.’ And all citizens, he said, should be entitled to debate any issue, as long as they had informed themselves. That is, all citizens should be educated – and the State should compel that education but not be, he suggests, the main provider of it.

So, this brings us back to that feared e-acute: if those who can (and should) be fully involved in political society are the ones who are informed enough to add to the debate, then few would be allowed. Mill was the voice of a liberalism before democracy was achieved. Half a century later and the debate had moved on: the issue becomes how to ensure that everyone can engage in political society, irrespective of their background. Liberals recognised that, at times, that could only be achieved by the intervention of the state. Liberalism, in other words, is about achieving an equality of opportunity and striving for social justice through all the means available.

The reason for this long posting may now be clear: it’s to make it clear, early in my time here, where I stand politically. Mill is a formative influence on Liberalism, but he can not be its guiding light. Later thinkers from T. H. Green to L. T. Hobhouse should take the credit. When the Adam Smith Institute praises my ward colleague, he’s right to take umbrage at having given succour to the suckers. Their idea of ‘classical liberals’ [sic] is an impoverished concept, still-born when the term was invented. They talk of liberals when they actually mean libertarians. But, as we accept, ‘liberal’ has historical resonances of freemen, but certainly not of Friedman.

Spoofing the Witney wonder

Spare a thought for my ward colleague, Cllr Tall. Ever ahead of the game, he was hot off the mark when Webcameroon hit the blogosphere to universal delight (for which, read derision). Stephen constructed a vidcast of deft satire and received for it plaudits from all quarters. Except perhaps that moment when his chest-hair gets rather too free an airing. His take gained a sort of cult following.

But now, nigh on a fortnight later, here comes along another elected representative, someone who's never been heard off even (one suspects) in parts of deepest Brum. He produces what can only be described as a pale imitation of the Tall chef-d'oeuvre. And what happens? It's all over BBC online, and headline news on Radio Four's PM.

When the history entitled Failed Renaissance: ten years in the demise of the Conservative Party, 2005 - 2015 comes to be written, maybe this incident will receive the humblest of footnotes. The author could gather together all the spoofs of the achingly hip-hoping podcasts of the Witney wonder (as in: wonder what he stands for) and then the seminal influence of Stephen's vidcast would finally be acknowledged. That might cheer him at a time when mid-life crisis is liable to hit.

Some might say it raises questions about the Westminster village's priorities when they give room for a non-entity of an MP over the man who was the finalist of the New Statesman's New Media awards and named LibDem blogger of the year. Then again, maybe Stephen has received too much exposure already. Like his chest-hair.

About a dead language redivivus

I’ll be honest, the title for this blog wasn’t my first choice. When the other Headington councillor first offered to help me shuffle my superannuated (by his standards) way into the third millennium, he held out the possibility that I could be in vino veritas. That would be my style – and would probably reflect my state when posting late at night. But somehow that didn’t happen. I can only assume that it’s already been bagged by AA blogging backsliders or some other distinguished outfit.

At this point, and before I go any further, I should probably enter a caveat for the sake of the vast majority of the world for whom Latin is a dead language with significantly less chance of breaking out of its coffin than Uma Thurman in Kill Bill II. In one of my other lives, away from politics and the needs of Headington, Latin happens to be the main language of the books that I research. I confess it: Latin’s my second tongue. Which may leave you wondering which is my first.

I share with you – and only you, it’s to go no further – that nugget because it would only be natural for some to be sitting there and thinking ‘what a poseur with that de haut en bas manoeuvre'. In short, who can blame you if you’re about to splutter the e-acute word. And to élitism I intend to return. But my point is that Latin touches all of us, from the jeunesse dorée to hoi polloi. With some state schools recognising Latin is a good way to teach grammar skills, it’s not the preserve of the privileged. And a phrase like ‘in vino veritas’ isn’t hard to understand, if we only think laterally – first word, English, second word sounds like wine, third word, might that have something to do with verity? In wine, the truth. Or you can’t lie as well when drunk. How true. Our venerable vernacular is suffused with Latin (like this sentence). Those who haven’t learnt a word of the lingua franca can still have fun with it. I need no further proof of this than the posting on her blog of one who dons the imperial purple of New Labour: no Latin to her name, but she can still make a rather good joke, replacing the moribus of this blog with moribund.

But I digress. I was here to give the real translation and explanation of de moribus liberalibus. Then, eventually, we will get to politics and the e-acute word. But it seems I’ll just have to post again – probably when I’m viticulturally inspired.